Sunday, May 13, 2018
... /////

In late 2015, Syrian president Bashar Assad was interviewed by the Czech public TV. Already before I had watched it, I didn't take the anti-Assad hysteria in the Western media seriously. But he has exceeded my expectations. I could have called him a wise man and I would have considered him if he were running as an option in some elections where I could vote.

Now, three days ago, a Greek "relatively right-wing" daily Kathimerini has published this 10-minute-long interview with Assad. It's just a demo, the full interview was longer.

And this soft-spoken man makes so much sense and talks so sensibly! OK, he's asked whether he had used the chemical weapons. So he reminds the viewers that Syria has given up its chemical weapons some five years ago and it was confirmed by some agencies. On top of that, there was probably no bomb-like attack at all because that would lead to thousands of casualties instead of 45.

The casualties shown in the film were just children and women. That fact sounds utterly implausible, too. Almost certainly, if there had been an attack, the percentage of men – warriors – would be at least some 50% among the victims, wouldn't it? Also, he didn't have any motivation. If the chemical weapons could be sensibly used, they would be used at an earlier time and a different place.

He was also asked about Trump's assertion that Assad was an animal. Assad answered that he remained calm and doesn't pay attention about the personal dimension of such attacks – what he cares about is the well-being of his people. Instead, Assad responded by praising Trump's honesty which is "very good".

Assad also discussed some Turkish soldiers on the Syrian soil. Those are occupying forces but that doesn't mean that Turks are enemies as a people, he included a friendly softening reaction once again. However, Erdogan – who is close enough to the Muslim Brotherhood, Assad thinks – has been doing similar things in Syria for almost a decade. He is just marketing the same activities in a different way today.

According to the Syrian president, it doesn't make much sense to distinguish between various factions of the terrorists. All of them are basically fighting on the same side and for the same overall goals. And from this viewpoint, all of these factions may be understood as proxy warriors led by the U.S. Exactly, that's what I see, too.

The full transcript shows that the interview was longer than 10 minutes. Only the first four questions were included in the video above. In the fifth question, Assad was asked whether he would meet Trump. Assad answered that it wouldn't be too meaningful because Trump acts differently than what he said yesterday – and the actual power belongs to the deep state. I think that Assad would do well even as an analyst of the internal U.S. political affairs.

In the following answer, Assad says that it takes less than a year to stabilize Syria unless the terrorists etc. are supported from abroad. With that support, things can be harder. Assad's seventh answer discusses the law about the confiscation of real estate. He claims that such a confiscation is made impossible by their constitution (a court decision would always be needed for every individual confiscation) and the law has been misinterpreted. He doesn't say too clearly what the law actually implies – but it's just something that may be done by the local governments.

In the following debate, he defines the Syrian people as his main ally, discusses Erdogan's plans (Erdogan is just a U.S. puppet, we hear, I am not sure I believe that), praises the Kremlin and denounces the Russophobia, explains different levels of a possible unification of Syria, says that whenever the U.S. can't achieve goals, they like to create chaos. He says some wise clichés about humans' making mistakes and estimates the cost of reconstruction of Syria to be in hundreds of billions. He says that he will stay as long as the Syrian folks want him. In the final question, Greece is classified as a non-aggressive nation that nevertheless has no relations with Syria right now (unlike Czechia which does have a rare diploamtic mission in Damascus, I add).

I was actually impressed by Assad's wife Asma al-Assad in some interviews as well – her appearances as well as the content of her answers and the form of her speech. In my opinion, she would trump most of the Western countries' first ladies, to say the least.

Only a tiny fraction of the people in the West bother and try to listen to Assad, his wife, and similar people – what they actually say. The rest, an overwhelming majority of the people in our countries, is just OK with being brainwashed with insanely manipulative distortions of the truth and lies in our "mainstream" media. It's crazy that our nations are more "centrally indoctrinated" e.g. than the people in Syria but it seems to be the case.